Meaning & use

stale

adjective·Everyday

No longer fresh, especially food that has lost its flavor, or an idea that has become boring from overuse.

See it in a sentence

The bread had gone stale after sitting out on the counter overnight.

His jokes felt stale after he had told the same ones for years.

A note on using this word

Stale applies literally to food and drink and figuratively to ideas, routines, or relationships that have lost their vitality.

Words with a similar meaning

oldflatdull

Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.

Words with an opposite meaning

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